It was said that secret orders had been issued by the great lamaseries at Lhasa to Batang and other places for the murder of all Chinese and Europeans near the Tibetan frontier.
The Lamas about Litang had a further feud with the Chinese officials, who in the previous year seized the kenpu, or chief steward, of their lamasery and chopped off his head.
It may be noted that on March 30—that is, four days before the attack on Feng took place—Consul-General Campbell had written to our Minister saying that Feng was headstrong, and that it was evident that his plans must create serious disturbances unless the Chinese garrisons in East Tibet were strengthened.
Later, on May 12, Consul-General Goffe wrote from Chengtu that a Chinese official at Batang stated that the local tribes had no intention of rebelling against the Chinese Government, and that Feng had brought his death upon himself by his harsh and unpopular measures. The local chiefs also sent a petition to the Chinese Viceroy of Szechuan complaining of the various unpopular changes introduced by Feng, which had incensed the people beyond measure. They repudiated any intention of throwing off their allegiance to China, but they warned the Viceroy that any despatch of troops to Litang and Batang would exasperate the people and provoke a general rebellion.
The Chinese official view of these transactions is given in a joint memorial from the General and the Viceroy to the Throne. The memorial stated that Feng recognized that unless the power of the Lamas, who had absolute control of the tribesmen, was reduced, there was certain to be serious opposition to the measures of reform he proposed to introduce. He accordingly requested that the old law limiting the number of priests should be put in force, and he further proposed that for a space of twenty years no one should be allowed to enter the priesthood. The Lamas resented this, and spread reports that Feng’s troops wore foreign dress and were drilled in the foreign fashion. They also represented that the changes he wished to introduce were solely in the interests of foreigners. His protection of the missionaries was adduced as a further proof of his partiality towards foreigners.
The Tibetan frontier continued in a disturbed condition. The great lamaseries of North-Western Yunan rose against the Chinese, and on August 3 Consul Litton reported from Teng-yueh that the rebellion was the work of the exiled Dalai Lama’s partisans. He said it was easy to raise disorders, particularly on account of the ill-judged attempt of the Szechuan authorities to force their jurisdiction on the Batang people. Mr. Forrest, a botanist who was travelling in the district at the time, wrote to Mr. Litton that, so far as the Chinese military were concerned, the whole affair had now become a mere squeezing and looting expedition. The disorderly character of the Chinese troops and the corruption of their officers constituted, he said, a serious danger, because the whole country might be raised thereby.
With more information before him, Mr. Litton wrote, on August 12, that the reason why the great lamaseries which in the previous May, when there were no Chinese troops at Atentse, had refused to join the Batang insurgents had now risen against the Chinese was to be sought in the violence and extortion of the Chinese Prefect. He had been at Atentse since the end of May with some 400 or 500 troops, who had been looting everywhere, which was hardly surprising when, according to a French priest living in the district, he received neither men nor money from his Government in spite of his warnings of the growing seriousness of the situation. Mr. Litton observed, further, that this was the third serious rebellion which had occurred in Yunan during the three years of Viceroy Ting’s tenure of office, and that none of these rebellions would have occurred if the most ordinary efficiency and honesty had been exercised. Viceroy Ting’s government, he said, was a calamity to his own people and a nuisance to his neighbours.
Only three days after he wrote this he received a report that Mr. Forrest, together with Pères Dubernard and Bourdonné, had been murdered.
The Chinese, in face of these occurrences, now took strong measures to put down the insurrection. Chao Erh-Feng, then Director of the Railway Bureau, and now Resident for Tibet, was ordered in April, 1905, to proceed with 1,000 foreign-drilled troops, and 2,000 more which he could raise on the way, to Tachien-lu. Some difficulty was experienced in collecting together the necessary troops, but in August it was reported that the Tibetans had suffered a reverse near the Batang frontier, and that the Chinese Commander was then at Batang itself. Later information showed that, in consequence of Chao’s severity and breach of faith, a serious revolt had again broken out in Batang, that Chao’s position was critical, and reinforcements were being hurriedly despatched from Chengtu in response to an urgent demand for them which he had addressed to the Viceroy. But he eventually established his position there, and, as will be related below, converted it from a self-ruling State into a Chinese district.
In January, 1906, Chao set off with some 2,000 foreign-drilled troops, equipped with rifles of German pattern and four field-guns, for Hsiang Cheng, a lamasery at one time the home of over 2,000 Lamas. It is situated about a week’s journey south-east of Batang on a high plateau surrounded by mountains, and the territory under its sway had so far been prohibited to Chinese, any who did enter being skinned alive. In the winter of 1905 a small Chinese official with twenty soldiers had come to this stronghold with a summons to the Abbot to swear his allegiance to China, but the Lamas had treated him with contumely.